The Winslow House

Article by Michael Rainville, Jr.

Luxury and opulence were hard to come by along the riverfront during the early years of St. Anthony and Minneapolis. Even though many immigrants from the East Coast, Canada, and Europe were coming to this area, it was still very rugged. However, that would all soon change when St. Paulite James Winslow entered the hotel business.

As one of the first and most prominent hoteliers in the St. Paul-St. Anthony area, James Winslow had a keen eye for opportunity. After establishing a successful hotel at Seven Corners in St. Paul, also called The Winslow House, he looked to grow his business. Upon completion of the Hennepin Avenue Bridge, the first bridge to span the Mississippi River, James Winslow bought a block of land in St. Anthony. Construction of the bigger and better Winslow House Hotel began in the spring of 1856 and was completed a year later in the spring on 1857.

1860 photo of the Winslow House taken from the west bank of the river, with the First Universalist Church, later Our Lady of Lourdes, to the left of the Winslow House.

Designed by architect Robert S. Alden, who also designed the first Hennepin County Courthouse and the Old Main building for the University of Minnesota, the five-story Winslow House was built using Nicollet Island limestone in the Colonial Revival style. It had 260 rooms, featured a ballroom, dining room, bar, billiards room, and bridal chambers, and was adorned with a cupola with a weathervane from Lyon, France of a trumpeting archangel Gabriel, a popular symbol of liberty found throughout America at the time. James Winslow even spent over $60,000, or over $1.5 million today, to furnish his new hotel. The Winslow House rivaled the great hotels of the East Coast and South.

Photo of the building taken in 1870.

Guests of the hotel were predominately from the South. With the help of Father Hennepin’s writings about his travels of the upper Mississippi, word of St. Anthony Falls and its beautiful surroundings made its way to the residents of the lower Mississippi well before Fort Snelling was even thought about. Because of this, southerners could not wait to board a riverboat and make the trek up the Mississippi to St. Paul where they would take horse drawn carriages to St. Anthony. During their stay, guests would frequently visit the chalybeate springs flowing out of bluffs near St. Anthony Falls that would eventually be home to Pettinghill’s Resort.

Guests playing croquetAs a result of the Winslow House’s popularity with southern tourists, abolitionist groups in St. Anthony did all they could to help the enslaved peoples who accompanied the tourists. The most famous of these accounts happened during the summer of 1860 when the Christmas family from the state of Mississippi paid a visit to the Winslow House with their slave, Eliza Winston.

When creating the state constitution in 1857, the writers banned slavery in Minnesota. This would normally dissuade southerners from visiting, but earlier that year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against Dred Scott, a former resident of Fort Snelling, which made it illegal for enslaved people to be freed for visiting or living in northern states. Local entrepreneurs and business owners also made it clear that they prioritized money over basic human rights. With the protection of capitalism, barbaric cultural norms, and the ruling of the Dred Scott case, southerners, like Col. Richard Christmas, flocked to the Winslow House.

Later during the summer of 1860, local abolitionists, led by former slave Emily Grey, filed a complaint with the sheriff of Hennepin County. The sheriff found the Christmases and took Eliza Winston to the county courthouse for a ruling. With the streets in front of the courthouse crowded with abolitionists, Judge Charles E. Vanderburgh, also an abolitionist, ruled in favor of Eliza Winston, who was then immediately freed. While this is one of the first cases of Minnesotans showing their kindness and commitment to helping those who are in need, the ruling scared away southern tourists and thus marked the downfall of the Winslow House. The last reservation in the hotel records was made only four months later on November 6th, 1860.

That following May, the furniture was sold, and the hotel was no more. Over the next two decades, the building would serve three more purposes. As the Civil War began, the building housed a “water-cure” business that quickly failed. After being bought by Charles Macalester, the building was rented out to Rev. Edward D. Neill who used it to house the Baldwin School. Charles Macalester would later deed the building to Rev. Neill and the trustees of the school, which later helped them establish Macalester College.

The last use of the old Winslow House building was as a medical facility, the Minnesota College Hospital. The hospital left the building in 1886 and it would soon be razed to make way for the Minneapolis Industrial Exposition Building. The weathervane that once stood atop the cupola was saved and put on top of the Exposition Building’s tower. The same weathervane would make its way into the Hennepin History Museum’s collection in 1946, and in 1999, it became, and still is, the museum’s logo.

Photo of the riverfront taken from on top of the Winslow House when it opened in 1857.

Even though the Winslow House building lasted only thirty years, it made an everlasting imprint on Minneapolis History. As the tallest building in the area, guests enjoyed spectacular views of St. Anthony Falls and the riverfront. The vantage point was so breathtaking that many photographs were also taken from on top of the building. Almost every single photo of Minneapolis taken from the east bank of the river during this time period was taken at the Winslow House, the city’s first taste of luxury.

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About Michael Rainville, Jr.

A 6th generation Minneapolitan, Michael Rainville Jr. received his B.A. in History from the University of St. Thomas, and is currently enrolled in their M.A. in Art History and Certificate in Museum Studies programs. Michael is also a historic interpreter and guide at Historic Fort Snelling at Bdote and a lead guide at Mobile Entertainment LLC, giving Segway tours of the Minneapolis riverfront for 7+ years. Contact: mrainvillejr@comcast.net. Click here for an interactive map of Michael's past articles.